Series Reactions in a CSTR with Time-Varying Input

Consider the following series reaction taking place in a CSTR (continuous stirred-tank reactor): . No chemical species (, , or ) are initially present in the reactor. The reactor is fed with only species at the time-varying feed rate .

The governing equations, obtained from material balances, are

,

,

,

where is time, is the reactor's residence time, and and are rate constants equal to and , respectively.

This Demonstration plots the concentration of all three species versus time for user-set values of . The blue, magenta, and brown curves correspond to species , , and , respectively.